PREFACE.

THIS little volume tells a strange and painful story; strange,
because the experiences of a prisoner for blasphemy are only known
to three living Englishmen; and painful, because their unmerited
sufferings are a sad reflection on the boasted freedom of our age.

My own share in this misfortune is all I could pretend to
describe with fidelity. Without (I hope) any meretricious display
of fine writing, I have related the facts of my case, giving a
precise account of my prosecutions, and as vivid a narrative as
memory allows of my imprisonment in Holloway Gaol. I have striven
throughout to be truthful and accurate, nothing extenuating, nor
setting down aught in malice; and I have tried to hit the happy
mean between negligence and prolixity. Whether or not I have
succeeded in the second respect the reader must be the judge; and
if he cannot be so in the former respect, he will at least be able
to decide whether the writer means to be candid and bears the
appearance of honesty.

One reason why I have striven to be exact is that my record may
be of service to the future historian of our time. It is always
rash to appeal to the future, as a posturing English novelist did
in one of his Prefaces; and it is well to remember the witticism of
Voltaire, who, on hearing an ambitious poeticule read his Ode to
Posterity, doubted whether it would reach its address. But it is
the facts, and not my personality, that are important in this case.
My trial will be a conspicuous event in the history of the struggle
for religious freedom, and in consequence of Lord Coleridge's and
Sir James Stephen's utterances, it may be of considerable moment in
the history of the Criminal Law. It is more than possible that I
shall be the last prisoner for blasphemy in England. That alone is
a circumstance of distinction, which gives my story a special
character, quite apart from my individuality. As a muddle-headed
acquaintance said, intending to be complimentary, Some men are born
to greatness, others achieve it, and I had it thrust upon me.

Prosecutions for Blasphemy have not been frequent. Sir James
Stephen was able to record nearly all of them in his "History of
the Criminal Law." The last before mine occurred in 1857, when
Thomas Pooley, a poor Cornish well-sinker, was sentenced by the
late Mr. Justice Coleridge to twenty months' imprisonment for
chalking some "blasphemous" words on a gate-post. Fortunately this
monstrous punishment excited public indignation. Mill, Buckle, and
other eminent men, interested themselves in the case, and Pooley
was released after undergoing a quarter of his sentence. From that
time until my prosecution, that is for nearly a whole generation,
the odious law was allowed to slumber, although tons of "blasphemy"
were published every year. This long desuetude induced Sir James
Stephen, in his "Digest of the Criminal Law" to regard it as
"practically obsolete." But the event has proved that no law is
obsolete until it is repealed. It has also proved Lord Coleridge's
observation that there is, in the case of some laws, a
"discriminating laxity," as well as Professor Hunter's remark that
the Blasphemy Laws survive as a dangerous weapon in the hands of
any fool or fanatic who likes to set them in motion.

In the pamphlet entitled Blasphemy No Crime, which I
published during my prosecution, and which is still in print if
anyone is curious to see it, I contended that Blasphemy is only our
old friend Heresy in disguise, and that, we know, is a priestly
manufacture. My view has since been borne out by two high
authorities. Lord Coleridge says that "this law of blasphemous
libel first appears in our books -- at least the cases relating to
it are first reported -- shortly after the curtailment or abolition
of the jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Courts in matters
temporal. Speaking broadly, before the time of Charles II. these
things would have been dealt with as heresy; and the libellers
so-called of more recent days would have suffered as heretics in
earlier times." (The Law of Blasphemous Libel. The
Summing-up in the case of Regina v. Foote and others. Revised with
a Preface by the Lord Chief Justice of England. London, Stevens and
Sons.) Sir James Stephen also, after referring to the writ De
Heretico Comburendo, under which heresy and blasphemy were
punishable by burning alive, and which was abolished in 1677,
without abridging the jurisdiction of Ecclesiastical Courts "in
cases of atheism, blasphemy, heresie, or schism, and other damnable
doctrines and opinions," adds that "In this state of things, the
Court of Queen's Bench took upon itself some of the functions of
the old Courts of Star Chamber and High Commission, and treated as
misdemeanours at common law many things which those courts had
formerly punished... This was the origin of the modern law as to
blasphemy and blasphemous libel." (Blasphemy and Blasphemous
Libel. By Sir James Stephen. Fortnightly Review, March,
1884.)

Less than ten years after the "glorious revolution" of 1688
there was passed a statute, known as the 9 and 10 William III., c.
32, and called "An Act for the more effectual suppressing of
Blasphemy and Profaneness." This enacts that "any person or persons
having been educated in, or at any time having made profession of,
the Christian religion within this realm who shall, by writing,
printing, teaching, or advised speaking, deny any one of the
persons in the Holy Trinity to be God, or shall assert or maintain
there are more gods than one, or shall deny the Christian doctrine
to be true, or the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to
be of divine authority," shall upon conviction be disabled from
holding any ecclesiastical, civil, or military employment, and on a
second conviction be imprisoned for three years and deprived for
ever of all civil rights.

Lord Coleridge and Sir James Stephen call this statute
"ferocious," but as it is still unrepealed there is no legal reason
why it should not be enforced. Curiously, however, the reservation
which was inserted to protect the Jews has frustrated the whole
purpose of the Act; at any rate, there never has been a single
prosecution under it. So much of the statute as affected the
Unitarians was ostensibly repealed by the 53 George III., c. 160.
But Lord Eldon in 1817 doubted whether it was ever repealed at all;
and so late as 1867 Chief Baron Kelly and Lord Bramwell, in the
Court of Exchequer, held that a lecture on "The Character and
Teachings of Christ: the former defective, the latter misleading"
was an offence against the statute. It is not so clear, therefore,
that Unitarians are out of danger; especially as the judges have
held that this Act was special, without in any way affecting the
common law of Blasphemy, under which all prosecutions have been
conducted.

Dr. Blake Odgers, however, thinks the Unitarians are perfectly
safe, and he has informed them so in a memorandum on the Blasphemy
Laws drawn up at their request. This gentleman has a right to his
opinion, but no Unitarian of any courage will be proud of his
advice. He deliberately recommends the body to which he belongs to
pay no attention to the Blasphemy Laws, and to lend no assistance
to the agitation for repealing them, on the ground that when you
are safe yourself it is Quixotic to trouble about another man's
danger; which is, perhaps, the most cowardly and contemptible
suggestion that could be made. Several Unitarians were burnt in
Elizabeth's reign, two were burnt in the reign of James I., and one
narrowly escaped hanging under the Commonwealth. The whole body was
excluded from the Toleration Act of 1688, and included in the
Blasphemy Act of William III. But Unitarians have since yielded the
place of danger to more advanced bodies, and they may congratulate
themselves on their safety; but to make their own safety a reason
for conniving at the persecution of others is a depth of baseness
which Dr. Blake Odgers has fathomed, though happily without
persuading the majority of his fellows to descend to the same
ignominy.

It will be observed that the Act specifies certain heterodox
opinions as blasphemous, and says nothing as to the
language in which they may be couched. Evidently the crime
lay not in the manner, but in the matter. The Common
Law has always held the same view, and my Indictment, like that of
all my predecessors, charged me with bringing the Holy Scriptures
and the Christian religion "into disbelief and contempt." With all
respect to Lord Coleridge's authority, I cannot but think that Sir
James Stephen is right in maintaining that the crime of blasphemy
consists in the expression of certain opinions, and that it is only
an aggravation of the crime to express them in "offensive"
language.

Judge North, on my first trial, plainly told the jury that any
denial of the existence of Deity or of Providence was blasphemy;
although on my second trial, in order to procure a conviction, he
narrowed his definition to "any contumelious or profane scoffing at
the Holy Scriptures or the Christian religion." It is evident,
therefore, what his lordship believes the law to be. With a certain
order of minds it is best to deal sharply; their first statements
are more likely to be true than their second. For the rest, Judge
North is unworthy of consideration. It is remarkable that, although
he charged the jury twice in my case, Sir James Stephen does not
regard his views as worth a mention.

Lord Coleridge says the law of blasphemy "is undoubtedly a
disagreeable law," and in my opinion he lets humanity get the
better of his legal judgment. He lays it down that "if the
decencies of controversy are observed, even the fundamentals of
religion may be attacked without a person being guilty of
blasphemous libel."

Now such a decision can only be a stepping-stone to the
abolition of the law. Who can define "the decencies of
controversy?" Everyone has his own criterion in such matters, which
is usually unconscious and fluctuating. What shocks one man pleases
another. Does not the proverb say that one man's meat is another
man's poison? Lord Coleridge reduces Blasphemy to a matter of
taste, and de gustibus non est disputandum. According to
this view, the prosecution has simply to put any heretical work
into the hands of a jury, and say, "Gentlemen, do you like that? If
you do, the prisoner is innocent; if you do not, you must find him
guilty." Such a law puts a rope round the neck of every writer who
soars above commonplace, or has any gift of wit or humor. It hands
over the discussion of all important topics to pedants and
blockheads, and bans the argumentum ad absurdum which has
been employed by all the great satirists from Aristophanes to
Voltaire.

When Bishop South was reproached by an Episcopal brother for
being witty in the pulpit, he replied, "My dear brother in the
Lord, do you mean to say that if God had given you any wit you
wouldn't have used it?" Let Bishop South stand for the
"blasphemer," and his dull brother for the orthodox jury, and you
have the moral at once.

"Such a law," says Sir James Stephen, "would never work." You
cannot really distinguish between substance and style; you must
either forbid or permit all attacks on Christianity. Great
religious and political changes are never made by calm and moderate
language. Was any form of Christianity ever substituted either for
Paganism or any other form of Christianity without heat,
exaggeration, and fierce invective? Saint Augustine ridiculed one
of the Roman gods in grossly indecent language. Men cannot discuss
doctrines like eternal punishment as they do questions in
philology. And "to say that you may discuss the truth of religion,
but that you may not hold up its doctrines to contempt, ridicule,
or indignation, is either to take away with one hand what you
concede with the other, or to confine the discussion to a small and
in many ways uninfluential class of persons." Besides, Sir James
Stephen says,

"There is one reflection which seems to me to prove with
conclusive force that the law upon this subject can be explained
and justified only on what I regard as its true principle -- the
principle of persecution. It is that if the law were really
impartial, and punished blasphemy only because it offends the
feelings of believers, it ought also to punish such preaching as
offends the feelings of unbelievers. All the more earnest and
enthusiastic forms of religion are extremely offensive to those who
do not believe them. Why should not people who are not Christians
be protected against the rough, coarse, ignorant ferocity with
which they are often told that they and theirs are on the way to
hell-fire for ever and ever? Such a doctrine, though necessary to
be known if true, is, if false, revolting and mischievous to the
last degree. If the law in no degree recognised these doctrines as
true, if it were as neutral as the Indian Penal Code is between
Hindoos and Mohametans, it would have to apply to the Salvation
Army the same rule as it applies to the Freethinker and its
contributors."

Excellently put. I argued in the same way, though perhaps less
tersely, in my defence. I pointed out that there is no law to
protect the "decencies of controversy" in any but religious
discussions, and this exception can only be defended on the ground
that Christianity is true and must not be attacked. But Lord
Coleridge holds that it may be attacked. How then can he ask that
it shall only be attacked in polite language? And if Freethinkers
must only strike with kid gloves, why are Christians allowed to use
not only the naked fist, but knuckle-dusters, bludgeons, and
daggers? In the war of ideas, any party which imposes restraints on
others to which it does not subject itself, is guilty of
persecution; and the finest phrases, and the most dexterous special
pleading, cannot alter the fact.

Sir James Stephen holds that the Blasphemy Laws are concerned
with the matter of publications, that "a large part of the
most serious and most important literature of the day is illegal,"
and that every book-seller who sells, and everyone who lends to his
friend, a copy of Comte's Positive Philosophy, or of Renan's
Vie de Jesus, commits a crime punishable with fine and
imprisonment. Sir James Stephen dislikes the law profoundly, but he
prefers "stating it in its natural naked deformity to explaining it
away in such a manner as to prolong its existence and give it an
air of plausibility and humanity." To terminate this mischievous
law he has drafted a Bill, which many Liberal members of Parliament
have promised to support, and which will soon be introduced. Its
text is as follows:

"Whereas certain laws now in force and intended for the
promotion of religion are no longer suitable for that purpose and
it is expedient to repeal them,

"Be it enacted as follows:

"1. After the passing of this Act no criminal proceedings shall
be instituted in any Court whatever, against any person whatever,
for Atheism, blasphemy at common law, blasphemous libel, heresy, or
schism, except only criminal proceedings instituted in
Ecclesiastical Courts against clergymen of the Church of England.

"2. An Act passed in the first year of his late Majesty King
Edward VI., c. 1, intituled 'An Act against such as shall
unreverently speak against the sacrament of the body and blood of
Christ, commonly called the sacrament of the altar, and for the
receiving thereof in both kinds,' and an Act passed in the 9th and
10th year of his late Majesty King William III., c. 35, intituled
an Act for the more effectual suppressing of blasphemy and
profaneness are hereby repealed.

"3. Provided that nothing herein contained shall be deemed to
affect the provisions of an Act passed in the nineteenth year of
his late Majesty King George II., c. 21, intituled 'An Act more
effectually to prevent profane cursing and swearing,' or any other
provision of any other Act of Parliament not hereby expressly
repealed."

Until this Bill is carried no heterodox writer is safe. Sir
James Stephen's view of the law may be shared by other judges, and
if a bigot sat on the bench he might pass a heavy sentence on a
distinguished "blasphemer." Let it not be said that their
manner is so different from mine that no jury would convict;
for when I read extracts from Clifford, Swinburne, Maudsley,
Matthew Arnold, James Thomson, Lord Amberley, Huxley, and other
heretics whose works are circulated by Mudie, Lord Coleridge
remarked "I confess, as I heard them, I had, and have a difficulty
in distinguishing them from the alleged libels. They do appear to
me to be open to the same charge, on the same grounds, as Mr.
Foote's writings."

Personally I understand the Blasphemy Laws well enough. They are
the last relics of religious persecution. What Lord Coleridge read
from Starkie as the law of blasphemous libel, I regard with Sir
James Stephen as "flabby verbiage." Lord Coleridge is himself a
master of style, and I suppose his admiration of Starkie's personal
character has blinded his judgment. Starkie simply raises a cloud
of words to hide the real nature of the Blasphemy Laws. He shows
how Freethinkers may be punished without avowing the principle of
persecution. Instead of frankly saying that Christianity must not
be attacked, he imputes to aggressive heretics "a malicious and
mischievous intention," and "apathy and indifference to the
interests of society;" and he justifies their being punished, not
for their actions, but for their motives: a principle which, if it
were introduced into our jurisprudence, would produce a chaos.

Could there be a more ridiculous assumption than that a man who
braves obloquy, social ostracism, and imprisonment for his
principles, is indifferent to the interest of society? Let
Christianity strike Freethinkers if it will, but why add insult to
injury? Why brand us as cowards when you martyr us? Why charge us
with hypocrisy when we dare your hate?

Persecution, like superstition, dies hard, but it dies. What
though I have suffered the heaviest punishment inflicted on a
Freethinker for a hundred and twenty years? Is not the night always
darkest and coldest before the dawn? Is not the tiger's dying
spring most fierce and terrible?

My sufferings, therefore, are not without the balm of
consolation. I see that the future is already brightening with a
new hope. Without rising to the supreme height of Danton, who cried
"Let my name be blighted that France be free," I feel a humbler
pleasure in reflecting that I may have been instrumental in
breaking the last fetter on the freedom of the press.